The invention relates generally to power-driven conveyors and, more particularly, to accumulators using conveyor belts with freely rotatable rollers.
In the parcel-delivery and postal industries, conveyors transport packages and letters in trays through a plant for sorting and other processing. Often a number of accumulation conveyors positioned along the length of a main conveyor feed trays onto the main conveyor. To allow the trays to accumulate on the accumulation conveyors to prevent collisions and overcrowding on the main conveyor, the accumulation conveyors use controllable gates to coordinate the blocking and releasing of trays to be fed onto the main conveyor. Conventionally, roller conveyors or roller-top conveyor belts are used as the accumulation conveyors. But roller conveyors are noisy and difficult to maintain and repair. And the roller-top belts conventionally used have more rollers than necessary.